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Publication Account

Date 2007

Event ID 587538

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/587538

Square NO23

NO23 1 LITTLE DUNSINANE (‘Bal-malcolm’)

NO/2225 3252

This probable broch in Cargill is situated on a rocky knoll on the west side of the Sidlaw Hills and some 150m south-west of, and below, Little Dunsinane. The following description is a summary of that by the Commission’s investigators [2] but the site is long known, having been mentioned in both the Old and the New Statistical Account.

The structure is 3-5m above the surrounding moorland and has been heavily robbed. There are several stones of the inner wallface on the north-east and the top edge of the turf-covered rubble scarp elsewhere indicates an original internal diameter of about 12m. The outer face is set below and up to about 5.5m from the inner face, and on the south-west it survives to a height of 1.25m in three or four courses. At this point, and elsewhere, the large basal blocks of the outer face are underpinned by smaller boulders, and, where it is best-preserved, the wall is clearly battered.

The entrance is on the east where access to the top of the knoll is easiest; it measures about 5.5m in length by 1m in width and is defined on each side of the passage by at least three facing-stones. Outside the entrance there is a small annexe enclosed by a boulder-faced stone wall measuring about 2.5m in thickness and no more than 0.3m in external height. This wall is poorly preserved and, at its northern end, may have returned to abut the outer face of the main structure. At its southern end, the wall may have continued onto a section of outcropping. An entrance gap, measuring about 3m in width, lies opposite the entrance to the main structure, and a little to the south of the main entrance there are the shallow remains of a small quarry pit.

Sources: 1. NMRS site no. NO 23 SW 25: 2. RCAHMS 1994, 51, 74 and 158.

E W MacKie 2007

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